Gender Roles- 1950’s
Gender roles in modern America of the 1950’s were very much centered around the husband needs. The wife’s obligation was to completely revolve her life around her families everyday tasks. Wartime in America caused for women to fighting the homefront, taking the place of their husbands in their daily occupations. In postwar America, the wifes roles was to go back to being the homemaker. Women in the 1950’s, being that they were there to patron for their husbands and family, and to be the primary caregiver in a various number of ways: to care for the home, to care for the family, and to take over the husbands work while he is off fighting the war.
Just before the 1950’s, during World War II, when the men were fighting the
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war, the woman overtook the men's work in factories, business, and other jobs formally occupied by their male counterparts. One website suggests that, “women played a crucial role in America as their male counterparts were dispatched on multiple foreign fronts… with an abundance of opportunities available, woman filled the jobs that were mostly occupied by men, proving that woman could do men’s work,” (social.rollins.edu). Before the war, and before the time women took over the men’s work, women were said to be unable to work, which is why they were at home, doing the household chores. In the meantime of the war, when the women proved themselves to be hardworking, and the intelligent gender that they are, there was suddenly a change in society. Women were suddenly viewed to be smarter, and a more equal gender to mankind. As claimed by khanacademy.org, “Soon after the end of World War II, men returned home and eventually assumed their pre-war occupations that some women were occupying. This drove women out of the manufacturing and industrial trades they were holding and as the baby boomers boomed, women became full time homemakers.” Although the men were back at work, and everything was returned to normal, the women of society still held a higher importance, and were respected more from their male partners. Women returned to their day to day work being the lady of the house, back to catering to their families. The role of a mother in the postwar 1950’s was to be the homemaker; and to make her needs inferior to those of her families.
According to history.house.gov, “In seeking to nurture their families in the suburbs in the 1950’s, housewives and mothers often gave up their aspirations for fulfillment outside the home.” This was not just a choice for the everyday housewife; as it was the duty of the women in the marriage to adjust her dreams around her husbands’. A wife’s role once she was married, was to give up everything for her family, as she is no longer her own person, but rather someone’s wife, or someone’s mother. In the television show I Love Lucy, the main character, Lucy, depicts a typical mother and wife. During her time at the show, she is quoted saying, “Woman is destined to maintain the species and care for the home, and care for the husband.” This particular television show greatly suggests the correct assumption that a mother's job was defined to be in the home. I Love Lucy gives people in today’s era a chance to relive life in the 1950’s, and an accurate representation of the specific gender roles. In this era of time, to conform to society was said to be the ‘American Dream’, with a husband working and mother at home doing the average duties of a homemaker. These consisted of the cleaning, laundry, making sure the household was immaculate, keeping the children in order, and being able to accompany to the husbands every need when he returns home from work. Whereas, nowadays, a working mother is quite common, and the duties of the household are often split between the husband and the wife, making the marriage an even
partnership. The life of a women in the 1950’s was simple. They are raised in a family, and once they get of the age to get married, they get married, and are the homemaker. The ‘American Dream’ for the wife was defined as a lifelong career of being a caregiver. However, before this time, during the war, women finally gained a stance in society, showing the opposite gender that women can be very diverse, from taking care of the home and family, to joining the workforce. Whereas men, were only made to do one of these tasks.
With the beginnings of the cold war the media and propaganda machine was instrumental in the idea of the nuclear family and how that made America and democracy superior to the “evils” of the Soviet Union and Communism; with this in mind the main goal of the 50’s women was to get married. The women of the time were becoming wives in their late teens and early twenties. Even if a women went to college it was assumed that she was there to meet her future husband. Generally a woman’s economic survival was dependent on men and employment opportunities were minimal.
Some historians have argued that 1950s America marked a step back for the advancement that women made during WWII. What contributed to this “return to domesticity” and do you believe that the the decade was good or bad for women? The end of World War II was the main contributing factor to the “return to domesticity”. During the war, women played a vital role in the workforce because all of the men had to go fight overseas and leave their jobs. This forced women to work in factories and volunteer for wartime measures.
In the beginning of television series with childless couples, the wife was the one that stayed at home, cleaned, cooked, and did the laundry. The husband was the one that made the money by going to work. Television series always portrayed women as the weaker characters. “Women in the early 1950s family were weak, secondary characters, and as such were usually dominated by their husbands and their own conceptions of marriage” (Hastings, 1974). Certain episodes of these shows always tried to prove that women should stay at home. When I Love Lucy came out with a woman as the main star, they still had her stay at home, cooking and cleaning, but still made her seem useless. “Women characters frequently were shown as less mature and less capable human-beings and their husbands often took a quasi-parental role by...
Like stated earlier, gender roles in the 50’s were very strict and narrow-minded. That being said, women were extremely limited in their role in society. First of all, women were expected to be homemakers. By homemaker, I mean the women w...
During WWII, women took over the work force, and had such inspirations as Rosie the Riveter. This created a generation of women who wanted more out of life than birthing children, and keeping a nice home for their husband. The end of the war, however, brought with it a decrease of working women. In the 1950’s the rate of working women had slightly rebounded to 29% following the post-war decrease in 1945. These women were well rounded, working outside the home, and still having dinner on the table by 5PM.
The world was a very different place sixty years ago. The men came home from the war to take back the work force from the women and sent the women back into the home to follow traditional domestic roles. All aspects of life had to be cookie cutter perfect, to include the gender roles. The roles of both genders have been portrayed by the BBC Television show, Call the Midwife, as they use to be in the 1950’s. The men were the breadwinners of their family by working arduous hours, protect their family and home, and have zero contact with feminine things and activities; the women were expected to get married early, always look their best, and never indulge in their aspirations for a career outside of the home unless they were single.
In the early 1900’s, women who were married main jobs were to care for her family, manage their houses, and do housework. That is where the word housewife was come from. During the 1940's, women's roles and expectations in society were changing quickly and a lot. Before, women had very limited say in society. Since unemployment was so high during the Great Depression, most people were against women working because they saw it as women taking jobs from men that needed to work. Women were often stereotyped to stay home, have babies, and to be a good wife and mother. Advertisements often targeted women, showing them in the kitchen, talking with children, serving dinner, cleaning, and them with the joy of a clean house or the latest kitchen appliance.
“Gender” refers to the cultural construction of whether one is female, male, or something else (Kottak 2013: 209). Typically, based on your gender, you are culturally required to follow a particular gender norm, or gender role. Gender roles are the tasks and activities a culture assigns to the sexes (Kottak 213: 209). The tasks and activities assigned are based upon strongly, seized concepts about male and female characteristics, or gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes…are oversimplified but strongly upheld ideas about bout the characteristics of males and females (Kottak 2013: 209).
The social perception of women has drastically changed since the 1950’s. The social role of women during the 1950’s was restrictive and repressed in many ways. Society during that time placed high importance on expectations of behavior in the way women conducted themselves in home life as well as in public. At home the wife was tasked with the role of being an obedient wife, caring mother, and homemaker. Women publicly were expected to form groups and bond over tea with a slice of cake. All the while government was pushing this idealize roll for women in a society “dominated” by men. However, during this time a percentage of women were finding their way into the work force of men. “Women were searching their places in a society led by men;
Dating back to the early 20th century, women’s roles in the United States were very limited. In regards to family life, women were expected to cook, clean, and take care of their homes. Men, on the other hand, were in charge of working and providing for the family. Together, these designated roles helped men and women build off of each other to ultimately keep their families in check. As the years progressed, society began to make a greater push to increase women’s rights. As women started receiving greater equality and freedom, their roles began to shift. More women had to opportunity to leave the house and join the workforce. The norm for a married couple slowly began to change as men were no longer expected to individually provide for their
Due to the idealization of domesticity in media, there was a significantly stagnant period of time for women’s rights between 1945 and 1959. Women took over the roles for men in the workplace who were fighting abroad during the early 1940s, and a strong, feminist movement rose in the 1960s. However, in between these time periods, there was a time in which women returned to the home, focusing their attention on taking care of the children and waiting on their husband’s every need. This was perpetuated due to the increasing popularity of media’s involvement in the lives of housewives, such as the increasing sales of televisions and the increase in the number of sexist toys. During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas.
also managed to prove that they could do the jobs just as well as men
The women of the 1950s struggled to fit into the mold that the American culture wanted them to be in. Women were meant to be the caretakers of the family and were expected to do whatever it would take to make sure that everything was perfect for their husbands. In a magazine article from Housekeeping Monthly that came out in 1955, there are a list of things that a woman must strive to do in order to be the ideal wife. This includes things such
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.
One of the most popular products of the 1950’s had to offer was most definitely the television. At the start of this decade there was just about three million television owners. By the end of the decade there was about 55 million television owners. The average price for a television set was about 50 dollars in 1949 to about 200 dollars in 1953.television in the 1950’s really helped shape what people thought a perfect society should really look like. Programs during this time included a white father, mother, and children. That being said just shows what racism was like during this time as well. It's quite clear black people were not the idea of a perfect family. 1950’s television, just like 50's reality, had very strict gender roles. After the